Beyond Totality: The Sun’s Chromosphere and Corona

Image Title: Beyond Totality: The Sun’s Chromosphere and Corona

Copyright: Alessandro Ravagnin & Nicola Bizzotto

Date image was taken: August 12, 2026

Location: Menorca and Madrid

Data Acquisition Method: Personal Telescope Setup

Description and Details: A composite view of the eclipsed Sun combining two normally very different perspectives of our star: the H-alpha chromosphere and prominences, reconstructed through spectroheliography, and the faint outer corona, photographed during totality.

The chromospheric data were acquired from Menorca, Balearic Islands, with the Sun only 12° above the western horizon, while the coronal images were obtained by Nicola Bizzotto from Madrid with the Sun 7° above the horizon.

The aim of the composition was to reveal different layers of the solar atmosphere in a single image, from the thin and highly structured chromosphere, with its prominences extending beyond the limb, to the much larger and fainter solar corona revealed by the natural occultation of the photosphere during totality.

To obtain an accurate geometrical match between the spectroheliographic solar disk and the eclipsed Sun, white-light images taken immediately after the beginning of totality and just before its end, close to the appearance/disappearance of Baily’s beads, were used as references for the exact apparent solar disk size relative to the Moon.

The chromosphere and corona were processed separately. The two datasets were then precisely registered using the prominences visible in both images as common reference features and finally blended into a single high-dynamic-range representation of the solar atmosphere.

Name: Alessandro Ravagnin

Website or Facebook Profile: https://astrotrex.wordpress.com/2026/08/16/total-eclipse-of-the-sun-12-08-2026/#english